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Wow. This looks great! I have been fond of James Horner's score to Titanic. I have always wanted to hear the entire score, and now it is released.

Unfortunately, the price has turned me off, at least for now. I may wait a few weeks after next Tuesday. I already have my eyes set on two new soundtrack releases of two new scores by Maestro John Williams, as well as the 40th anniversary release of his score to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

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So glad you guys are excited by this release. To be honest with you, we didn't even think it was going to happen until we did Braveheart a few years back. We are deeply honored to have been able to bring this dream project to life with the full cooperation of Mr Horner's estate, agency, Fox, Paramount, Sony Music and Lightstorm (and we got it signed off on just as they started shooting the new Avatar films!). While it would have been nice to include the song, we were frankly told that IF we wanted to include it we may want to schedule the release for the 25th anniversary! lol

You can bemoan all you want about the song, but the fact is that our goal was to present the original score as Mr Horner recorded for the film. The song would have been nice, but beyond complicated.

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I'm the last person to bemoan the absence of that stupid song, but can't help wondering, why is it so difficult to license 20 years after its release? And why did the score/source music work out all right? What's so special about this song?

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I'm the last person to bemoan the absence of that stupid song, but can't help wondering, why is it so difficult to license 20 years after its release? And why did the score/source music work out all right? What's so special about this song?

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I'm the last person to bemoan the absence of that stupid song, but can't help wondering, why is it so difficult to license 20 years after its release? And why did the score/source music work out all right? What's so special about this song?

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There's really only one possibility...the licensing fee was too high. Especially given the limited number of copies this is going to sell, La-La Land probably (rightly) concluded that their audience would not be motived to buy the record by the song's presence, nor dissuaded by the lack thereof.

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Potentially true, but it wasn't her song, it was written by Dolly Parton, who still holds the copyright to the work.

Licensing that song would be much different than licensing some arrangements of public domain Christmas carols. The song from Titanic is still a big money maker and a hot commodity, so I'm certain the various fees would have been astounding!

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I woke up groggy this morning (forgetting all about the announcements) and was reading through the Die Another Day thread when someone mentioned "over in the TITANIC thread" and I was like

Seriously great news to wake up to. I knew it was going to happen someday, just not this soon...if you can say twenty years on is 'soon'. It'll be very interesting to finally hear everything. I just re-read the following interview with Don Davis which is a great insight to the process:

PLUME: On a side note to Horner, you worked with him on Titanic. There was a very famous rift between Horner and James Cameron after Aliens. Was any residual of that evident in what you observed between Horner and Cameron on Titanic? It was originally a falling out based on their differing views on the music for Aliens, wasn't it?

DAVIS: No, I think it was a little more than that. It was music too, but Jim Cameron is a very tough guy to work for. Actually, I gained a lot of respect for Horner during Titanic, because Horner was accommodating Cameron in ways that I thought a composer the stature of Horner had no reason to accommodate anyone. He completely handled the situation with absolute humility and professionalism. I don't think there are very many composers who would have acquiesced to Jim Cameron the way Horner did. Horner gave Jim exactly what he wanted. I think there are some people who think that the Titanic score may be overly simplistic, or some people object to the Celtic nature of it, or whatever, but I can tell you that if any other composer had scored that picture, Jim would have fired him and at least four other composers before he got what he wanted. Horner was determined that that would not happen, and it didn't happen, and I think it was the best score that Jim would ever allow into that picture. For that reason, I think he deserves all the Academy Awards and accolades that he got.

PLUME: I think that's a perspective that not very many people saw in that.

DAVIS: Well, you kind-of had to be there to see it. I mean, it was magnificent.

PLUME: It was surprising to a lot of people that Horner would even work with Cameron again after Aliens.

DAVIS: I can't really say, because I wasn't there all that much. I would go to Horner's place, pick up the sketches, he'd talk me through them, I'd do them, and I was done. I do know that I made a lot of extra money on that show, because the picture kept changing and Cameron kept making changes, and as the sketches changed, they kept coming back to me to change the orchestration and I'd get more money. That was just fine as far as I was concerned. Through that process, I could see that he was accommodating this director. He was really bending over backwards to do everything that Jim wanted him to do. I couldn't picture a composer of the stature of John Williams doing that, well, maybe he would but there gets to be a point when it's too much.

PLUME: Isn't it the job of the composer to conform to the director's view of the film? What line is there that demarcates when it's not worth the hassle?

DAVIS: There are situations where directors give composers directives just to give them directives. Just to show "who's boss in this room."

PLUME: Is it the film version of busy work?

DAVIS: Sure. Go outside and dig a 20-foot hole and then fill it up again. Composers, whether they are or not, certainly like to view themselves as being creative and having a contribution to make to the process. There are some personalities, fortunately they are few, that seem to want to negate that. There's a point where it becomes too much of an insult to bear. If a composer is very highly successful, and James Horner certainly is, that means that he has to take less of that kind of abuse than a composer who is not of that stature. From my limited vantage point, it seemed like changes were coming in just for the sake of changes to come in, and I was wondering, as I was picking up these changed sketches, why Horner was going to such lengths to make this guy happy. Once the film came out, I understood perfectly. That's another tribute to James Horner, because he has not only an amazing visceral insight into what a film needs musically, but he knows how these situations work and he knows when to do something and when not to do something. You've got to hand it to the guy.

____________

I talked to Simon Franglen a few months ago about Horner's synth work and he said that Titanic was 'the score with no budget'. About 60% was synth only. They wanted to replace the synth choir (which Simon built from seven different synths) with the Harlem Boys Choir but there was no money to do so.

Here's a news article about Horner's original soundtrack deal. Wonder how much Johnny gets per album?

Titanic Composer Sails to BankNEW YORK (Variety) - Forget the two Oscars he won for the music to ``Titanic.'' James Horner is creating more of a buzz for a ``Titanic'' soundtrack deal that has the composer homing in on a record payday that may be more than $20 million. Insiders familiar with the deal say it breaks down this way: Horner got an upfront scoring fee of around $800,000. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. He also gets royalty points on the instrumental soundtrack and shares publishing and songwriting fees for the Celine Dion hit ``My Heart Will Go On.'' Sources say the fees mean Horner will earn $1.20 per album -- a rate typical for platinum-selling superstar artists.

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Dion has no songwriting credit on “My Heart Will Go On.” The lyrics were written by Will Jennings. Dion would get performance royalties of course.

For sure.

Funny story regarding the Dolly song. At one point Elvis wanted to record it, but wanted her to sell him the rights to the song also. She refused and certainly made more money from the writing credit later when Whitney recorded it, so good move on her part. 😊 Nothing to do with Titanic, but since we're on the subject.

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I think there are some people who think that the Titanic score may be overly simplistic, or some people object to the Celtic nature of it, or whatever, but I can tell you that if any other composer had scored that picture, Jim would have fired him and at least four other composers before he got what he wanted. Horner was determined that that would not happen, and it didn't happen, and I think it was the best score that Jim would ever allow into that picture. For that reason, I think he deserves all the Academy Awards and accolades that he got.

That's, in a nutshell, why this score is really more a representation of Cameron's lowbrow tastes - however in tune with the general public - than Horner's real musical talents. 'Perfect Storm', you now may please enter.